Movie Review: Akahige

Akahige (Red Beard)
1965 Akira Kurasawa

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0058888/

This is my favorite so far of the Kurasawa movies I've watched. It has several features that may deter modern audiences from watching it, it's in Japanese with subtitles, it's black and white, it's about 3 hours long, and it's a human drama with very little in the way of action, just people talking and dealing with their lives, and it has no sex. It is well worth watching though, the cinematography is absolutely gorgeous, the actors know their stuff, the story is engrossing and it has Toshiro Mifune.

I am a total Mifune fangirl. He can do more with a raised eyebrow than most actors can do with an entire monologue.

Mifune is Dr. Niide, the crusty head of a government sponsored clinic for the poor. The title of the movie comes from his nickname among his staff who call him Akahige behind his back because his hair has a reddish tint. According to the commentary track it is also a play on words in Japanese referring to one name for Western Medicine at the time the movie is set, which appears to be some time in the 17^th or 18^th century. Kurosawas's attention to detail is such that if I knew more about the subtle changes in fashion over that period I could probably nail it down.

The main character isn't Niide, it's Dr. Yasumoto, a fresh out of med school brat who has assumed that his father's connections will ensure him a place on the Shogun's staff and is outraged to be placed at the clinic without being consulted. There are very good reasons for him to be there we learn as the movie goes on, not least is that he has a LOT to learn from Niide. Yasumoto is played by the very hot Yuzo Kayama.

The first meeting between the two had me hooked. With a look Mifune shows that Niide is going to make a real doctor out of this wet behind the ears puppy if it kills both of them. I pretty much knew how things would play out from that point on and so will you if you have seen other movies in this genre but it was fun getting there and there were some surprising twists along the way.

Although there are no sex scenes there is nudity, a young woman stripped naked and held down as they perform surgery. The scene was disturbing to me. They don't have modern anesthetics so the woman writhes in pain as they work. The odd camera angles keep you from seeing either her genitals or the open abdominal wound but you don't need to see the surgical site, the dialog and her reactions made me cringe as much as any hyper-realistic CSI special effect.

There is also much talk of sexual abuse as we hear the stories of patients who come to the clinic. These include a child rescued from a seedy brothel, a madwoman who murdered her lovers, and a woman forced to marry her mother's lover. It doesn't have a US MPAA rating but I'd put it about PG13. I'd say anybody over 12 who can deal with reading a 3 hour movie is probably mature enough to handle the issues raised.